Here are 100 books that Awakening Compassion at Work fans have personally recommended if you like
Awakening Compassion at Work.
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Being a leader is hard, being a woman in leadership is exponentially harder. I learned this firsthand at 22 during my first management role at one of the big 4 accounting firms. I did it all wrong and I want to help women leaders avoid all the mistake I made. The most important thing I learned is the importance of relationships. What I do now is help people communicate to connect because what I believe is that real relationships lead to real results. And close relationships, personal and professional, just make us happier, and who doesn’t want that?
As the mom of an extreme introvert, I listened to this book to better understand my child. It taught me so much about how introverts think, process information, but most importantly, what they need around communication. As a leader, understanding the differences in the way people think, work, and engage will enable you to get the most out of them.
I retrained myself to approach my daughter differently as a result of this book. It helped me explain myself to her and made her feel understood by me. Grateful for this book. Imagine if we did that in the workplace!
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A SUNDAY TIMES AND NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER, THIS BOOK WILL CHANGE HOW YOU SEE INTROVERTS - AND YOURSELF - FOREVER.
Our lives are driven by a fact that most of us can't name and don't understand. It defines who our friends and lovers are, which careers we choose, and whether we blush when we're embarrassed.
That fact is whether we're an introvert or an extrovert.
The most fundamental dimension of personality, at least a third of us are introverts, and yet shyness, sensitivity and seriousness are often seen as…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
In 2009, I opted out of a career in consulting to pursue a PhD in Sociology and to research women who opt out of successful careers to live and work on their own terms. I was convinced that it wasn’t a women’s issue but a contemporary one and I later went on to research men opting out. As I collect stories of people who opt out and in, it becomes clear that opting out is a symptom of contemporary organizational cultures and the way we are expected to work. I’m on a mission to change working life as we know it and these books have been enormously helpful to me.
I was impressed by this book because it so clearly explains why the way we think about business, work, and organizations has to change and it shows us how everything is connected.
The system we have known for as long as we can remember is no longer working. On the contrary, it’s harming us, our health, our wellbeing, our planet, and our future. Only by rethinking the way we lead and organize can we secure a future for ourselves and our planet.
The book is visually beautiful, it is life-affirming and full of examples of organizations that are already doing things differently, and it also works as a handbook for becoming a regenerative leader.
This book by leadership and sustainability experts Giles Hutchins and Laura Storm provides an exciting and comprehensive framework for building regenerative life-affirming businesses. It offers a multitude of business cases, fascinating examples from nature’s living systems, insights from the front-line pioneers and tools and techniques for leaders to succeed and thrive in the 21st century.
Regenerative Leadership draws inspiration from pioneering thinking within biomimicry, circular economy, adult developmental psychology, anthropology, biophilia, sociology, complexity theory and next-stage leadership development. It connects the dots between these fields through a powerful framework that enables leadership to become regenerative: in harmony with life, building…
In 2009, I opted out of a career in consulting to pursue a PhD in Sociology and to research women who opt out of successful careers to live and work on their own terms. I was convinced that it wasn’t a women’s issue but a contemporary one and I later went on to research men opting out. As I collect stories of people who opt out and in, it becomes clear that opting out is a symptom of contemporary organizational cultures and the way we are expected to work. I’m on a mission to change working life as we know it and these books have been enormously helpful to me.
This book is an entertaining read, but it is also to the point and spot on. It debunks nine so-called ‘truths’ about work, management, and organizations that are well-established practices and ways of thinking in the organizational sphere.
According to the authors these ‘lies’ are root causes of much of the dysfunction and frustration in organizations today (which I have seen a lot of in my work and research) and they suggest how we should think about these things instead in order for our organizations – and the people in them – to thrive.
You crave feedback. Your organization's culture is the key to its success. Strategic planning is essential. Your competencies should be measured and your weaknesses shored up. Leadership is a thing.
These may sound like basic truths of our work lives today. But actually, they're lies. As strengths guru and bestselling author Marcus Buckingham and Cisco Leadership and Team Intelligence head Ashley Goodall show in this provocative, inspiring book, there are some big lies--distortions, faulty assumptions, wrong thinking--that we encounter every time we show up for work. Nine lies, to be exact.…
Stealing technology from parallel Earths was supposed to make Declan rich. Instead, it might destroy everything.
Declan is a self-proclaimed interdimensional interloper, travelling to parallel Earths to retrieve futuristic cutting-edge technology for his employer. It's profitable work, and he doesn't ask questions. But when he befriends an amazing humanoid robot,…
I have been researching the changes in the workplace for 40 years now. The steady move over that time has been away from a situation where employers controlled the development of their “talent” and managed it carefully, especially for white-collar workers, toward arrangements that are much more arms-length where employees are on their own to develop their skills and manage their career. Most employees now see at least some management practices that just don’t make sense even for their own employer–casual approaches to hiring, using “leased employees” and contractors, who are paid more, to do the same work as employees, leaving vacancies open, and so forth.
Most of the discussion about whether jobs are good or bad focuses on wages. The sociologists add the concern about uncertainty–will my job last?
What gets far less attention is the fact that the way we manage employees has a direct and profound effect on their mental health and, in turn, on their physical health.
This is a new finding and an important one. We can see a direct effect of bad management practices on employee sickness and death. As documented here, stress kills.
In one survey, 61 percent of employees said that workplace stress had made them sick and 7 percent said they had actually been hospitalized. Job stress costs US employers more than $300 billion annually and may cause 120,000 excess deaths each year. In China, 1 million people a year may be dying from overwork. People are literally dying for a paycheck. And it needs to stop.
In this timely, provocative book, Jeffrey Pfeffer contends that many modern management commonalities such as long work hours, work-family conflict, and economic insecurity are toxic to employees—hurting engagement, increasing turnover, and destroying people’s physical…
As a consultant, author, and researcher, for several years I have been very passionate about the study of companies that are very successful in the marketplace, but that are also human-oriented. In other words, I am very interested in companies that are profitable, but at the same time, are kind, compassionate, and caring with their main stakeholders. I like that these companies continually aim to foster robust long-term relationships with these stakeholders, and look for win-win agreements with them. What I love about these companies is that they focus on the quantitative aspects of business (e.g., profitability, growth, etc.) but also in its qualitative aspects (empathy, support, gratitude, generosity, etc.).
I like that this book pinpoints the importance of compassion for the workplace in a very well-justified manner. I really love that not only does this book explain the main traits of compassion, but it also pinpoints the reasons why compassion is missing in many workplaces, for example, communication breakdown, lack of empathy, etc. I find it very insightful that this book provides the reader with easy-to-apply strategies to develop more compassion in the work environment. This book also provides some specific cases of real organisations which have developed compassionate workplaces.
We live in a world in crisis. Societies are becoming fractured, opinions polarized and people are increasingly isolated. In an attempt to seek out human connection, many people spend more time at work than they do with family members, yet few of us have someone at work who we trust enough to share our vulnerabilities. To be human is to suffer, yet our struggles can remain hidden from work.
This book argues that compassion is a core human value, which is too often overlooked in business. In these challenging and unprecedented times, workplaces have a crucial role to play in…
As I moved up in leadership, I found I was not prepared to manage people during uncertain and difficult times. Transitions bring about the worst in people. They get fearful and that causes bad behavior by triggering defense mechanisms. The books I listed are a progression of books that helped me to understand how transitions and change affect people and gave me a framework to continue to learn and increase my leadership skills. I then decided to write about new insights I gained in leadership to help others and have published two books and am writing articles on Medium.
I like this book because of the real-life examples of big company CEOs balancing empathy, compassion, and caring with good business acumen. During uncertainty and change, it is harder but even more important to have empathy and compassion for employees. The authors show that leaders with empathy and compassion foster much higher levels of employee engagement, performance, and loyalty in their employees. Authors Hougaard and Carter also provide tools to help managers at all levels.
Leadership
is hard. How can you balance compassion for your people with effectiveness in
getting the job done?
A global pandemic, economic
volatility, natural disasters, civil and political unrest. From New York to
Barcelona to Hong Kong, it can feel as if the world as we know it is coming
apart. Through it all, our human spirit is being tested. Now more than ever,
it's imperative for leaders to demonstrate compassion.
But in
hard times like these, leaders need to make hard decisions-deliver
negative feedback, make difficult choices that disappoint people, and in some
cases lay people off. How do…
Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…
I am someone whose trauma history came out of the blue…while living in a yoga ashram, meditating, and training for triathlons. After almost seven years of ashram life I left, went to graduate school, and explored trauma, attachment, and wisdom traditions in inpatient and outpatient hospital settings, my private practice, and beyond. I amassed skills sets in trauma treatment (as a supervisor under the guidance of Bessel van der Kolk and Janina Fisher), attachment theory (with Daniel Brown, PhD), compassion (Compassion Focused Therapy & Mindful Self-Compassion), body therapy (as a trainer for Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, practitioner in LifeForce Yoga and Self-Awakening Yoga), and Internal Family Systems.
This was another tough choice as Paul is a prolific writer, one of the earliest researchers and writers on the importance of compassion in healing. In this book, Paul teams up with a former Buddhist monk, Choden, to skillfully blend evolutionary and Buddhist psychology. Repeatedly, we are shown how compassion can be a powerful motivational force bringing about real, lasting change to end toxic self-criticism, heal trauma and shame, help us feel worthy and loveable, and be kinder to ourselves and others.
Are you ready to transform your mind and emotions? To cultivate compassion, stability, self-confidence, and well-being? If so, get ready to change the way you experience your life with this highly-anticipated approach using mindfulness and compassion. Therapists have long been aware of mindfulness as a powerful attention skill that can help us live with greater clarity and awareness - but mindfulness alone is not enough to completely change the way a brain works. In order to fully thrive, we require motivation. Compassion, like anger or aggression, is an extremely powerful motivational force that can bring about real, lasting change. Written…
My formative immersion in nature during eleven summers at a girls’ camp in the Hocking Hills of southeastern Ohio showed me that everything in the physical world, including humans, is dynamically interrelated at subtle levels. As an adult, I’ve followed post-mechanistic sciences that explore this invisible truth, a theme that runs through several books I have written. Since the early 2000s, a new wave of discoveries, this time in human biology, reveals that we are composed entirely of dynamic interrelationships, in and around us, which affect us continuously from conception to our last breath. These discoveries are quickly being applied in many areas. I call this new awareness the Relational Shift.
During the past twenty years, hundreds of studies have found that practicing medicine with compassion, caring, and good information-sharing brings significantly better empirical results than usual. In short, relational dynamics affect our measurable physical condition. For instance, biopsy wounds and surgical wounds heal faster if the patients receive compassionate care from their doctors and nurses. Similarly, diabetes patients receiving compassionate care are far less likely to develop metabolic complications. These relational findings should revolutionize medicine, especially considering the hefty savings in healthcare costs. For now, though, “Research shows that physicians routinely miss emotional clues from patients and routinely miss 60-90% of opportunities to respond to patients with compassion.” These two doctors write in an enjoyable conversational style, sharing their own stories as well as the irrefutable data.
A 34-year-old man fighting for his life in the Intensive Care Unit is on an artificial respirator for over a month. Could it be that his chance of getting off the respirator is not how much his nurses know, but rather how much they care?
A 75-year-old woman is heroically saved by a major trauma center only to be discharged and fatally struck by a car while walking home from the hospital. Could a lack of compassion from the hospital staff have been a factor in her death?
Compelling new research shows that health care is in the midst of…
Spending my childhood in Nazi Germany, the nature and the horrific consequences of Nazi ideology have occupied me as a student of German history and later as a teacher of intellectual and literary history. In 1933 Car Schmitt opted to support the Nazis. While he was banned from the public sohere in post-war Germany, his ideas remained influential on the far right and the far left, fortunately without significantly impacting the democratic reconstruction of West Germany. It was the growing international visibility of Schmitt’s writings that became my personal concern after 2000. In particular, Schmitt’s increasing influence in the United States energized me to reread and respond to his writings.
Lately, the news about China and the West has been discouraging. The media focus on the dangers of authoritarianism. But was this always the case? This book tells the fascinating story of the unexpected and multifaceted influence of classical Chinese culture on early modern Europe (1600-1800) and in particular Germany. German thinkers and writers felt that they could learn from China. The study was an eye-opener for me that changed my understanding of the intellectual formation of modern Europe and especially modern Germany. It is a crucial narrative that contrasts with the well-known narrative of European expansion and domination.
Chinese Sympathies examines how Europeans-German-speaking writers and thinkers in particular-identified with Chinese intellectual and literary traditions following the circulation of Marco Polo's Travels. This sense of affinity expanded and deepened, Daniel Leonhard Purdy shows, as generations of Jesuit missionaries, baroque encyclopedists, Enlightenment moralists, and translators established intellectual regimes that framed China as being fundamentally similar to Europe.
Analyzing key German literary texts-theological treatises, imperial histories, tragic dramas, moral philosophies, literary translations, and poetic cycles-Chinese Sympathies traces the paths from baroque-era missionary reports that accommodated Christianity with Confucianism to Goethe's concept of world literature, bridged by Enlightenment debates over cosmopolitanism and…
The Bridge provides a compassionate and well researched window into the worlds of linear and circular thinking. A core pattern to the inner workings of these two thinking styles is revealed, and most importantly, insight into how to cross the distance between them. Some fascinating features emerged such as, circular…
My interest in kindness was renewed when I became a mother. I realized the best gift I could give my children was raising them to be kind. So, I founded a children’s media company (now sold), Little Pickle Press, dedicated to fostering kindness in children. It was a Certified B Corporation, so we prioritized our people and the planet over profit. And we brought to life many stories from diverse voices that showed children and their caring adults the power of kindness. Today, I sit on the Board and serve as Treasurer of Kindness.org, a non-profit researching the science of kindness and developing programs to apply it in classrooms, corporations, and homes.
I appreciate this book because it showcases the importance of kindness to ourselves, first and foremost. And when we are kind to ourselves, being kind to others is a natural extension.
It helps readers to become self-aware and vulnerable and understand that we all make mistakes. We also have the power to learn from them and the agency to make better choices and move forward. I also really love Peter Reynolds' colorful and emotional illustrations.
I am human
I am a work in progress
Striving to be the best version of ME
From the picture book dream team behind I Am Yoga and I Am Peace comes the third book in their wellness series: I Am Human. A hopeful meditation on all the great (and challenging) parts of being human, I Am Human shows that it's okay to make mistakes while also emphasizing the power of good choices by offering a kind word or smile or by saying "I'm sorry." At its heart, this picture book is a celebration…
